Ginny appeared in her flat with a loud crack, and immediately fell to her knees, hyperventilating, tears streaming down her face. "Fuck," she said pitifully. "Fucking, fuck." She was at least relieved that she'd managed to hold off until she'd left Remus's. For a moment, she stared at her dangling shirt strap, transfixed as the morning replayed in her head. Letting her hair fall into her face, she choked on a sob as the scent of Harry filled her nostrils. She stood on wobbly legs and kicked the side of her chair angrily, ignoring the pain shooting into her bare toes. She deposited her things in the chair and peeled off her clothes, leaving them in a trail to the shower. She stood under cold water, numb and unblinking, silently chastising herself for making such a big deal of this.

Her mind wanted to work its way through the logic of the morning. But she shook her head, her mind was not allowed to do that. Harry Potter was back, and she got carried away in a completely unwelcome way. Well, not completely unwelcome, but unwelcome in the ways that could break her. She dried herself and dressed in a pair of denims and one of Ron's threadbare, child hood shirts. It was once dark blue, and the cotton was so well worn it bordered on sheer in the elbows and shoulders. Unbelievably soft, it was usually accompanied, on really bad days, by a glass of strawberry milk and bottomless plates of macaroni and cheese. Strawberry milk in hand, an owl she recognized as her mother's tapped on the glass. She opened the window and sighed, realizing at the thought of her Mum, that she'd utterly forgotten her manners. She found the alumni journal in the pile of things in her chair and scrawled notes to Remus, Tonks, and Hermione.

Ginny claimed her Macaroni and Cheese and settled in with the journal. Not only did it provide a good home for things she didn't want to think of but couldn't seem to keep out of her mind, but there was also harmless conversation happening inside it. Anything resembling normal, thoughtless social interaction was what she needed to keep her mind off of Harry. The journal was perfect. It meant that she didn't have to go outside and risk seeing anyone, and the Mac and Cheese was only a few feet away. After a small nap, a bit of conversation with Seamus and Stephen, two owls to Molly, both of which seemed to be a painful stretch of the imagination but she wasn't ready to talk about anything yet, Ginny stretched and braided her hair. She was thankful that she was communicating with her mother in writing, because she would've never gotten away with the lies in person.

She look around her flat and the mussed journal. Writing in it had helped a bit, but she needed to talk to a real person that didn't cause her any emotional tempests. Pulling on a loosely crocheted hat, she popped a sobering draught into her pocket and walked down Diagon Alley to the Leaky Cauldron. She felt a bit guilty about standing everyone else up, but she figured they didn't miss her.

He encouraged, mimicking, well, REALLY drinking his drink, but doing it in a way that demonstrated to Luna the nuances of drinking that one learns when about, two, or younger perhaps, but that little detail is inconsquential. Besides, drinking was to be done!

Luna vowed never to listen to Seamus again. It took every ounce of strength she had to not spit whatever it was he had her drink across the table, but swallow it instead. And as soon as she did, she wished she had spit it out instead. He entire throat felt like it was ablaze, immediately sending her into a coughing fit.

Luna was surprised at Seamus' emotional? reaction. Luna's exposure to drunk people was pretty limited...to the luau the night before. And her mind had been a bit distracted with Draco's cake and the article. She had adored the drinks with tiny umbrellas, but this was the polar opposite.

Stephen had barely recovered from his shock after that kiss. He likely should have guessed something like that would happen, but even if he had anticipated it, it still would have been a surprise. He didn't mind Luna gripping his arm; in fact, it was sort of nice to be trusted. He used his free hand to drink from whatever was closest: that scary nutmeg-y drink.

Ginny, handed Luna a butterbeer and patted her on the back, muttering, "Well done, then, well done."She looked away from Stephen and tried not to stare at Seamus when he planted a kiss on the other man, but she had to laugh when Stephen's reaction seemed to be to come on to Luna. The three shots had started to hit her, and it was a lovely feeling. Her chest burned with the heat of the whiskey, and her skin felt a bit tingly. The solid meal in her stomach helped her avoid the usual turmoil firewhiskey could cause. She felt like she could breath fire. She really wanted to breath fire.She excused herself and set about finding a cigarette to smoke outside while writing to Tonks. After all, you weren't being anti-social if you were talking to somebody, even if it involved writing, which wasn't altogether easy. It seemed like her brain worked at a far different pace than her fingers.

Seamus wasn't THAT drunk. He did notice indeed that Stephen was hitting on someone else, mostly Luna. He huffed into his drink and almost followed Ginny outside for a fag, but wasn't that into smoking, really. Thought it made his teeth yellow, and he wanted his teeth quite white.

"Slow down, Seamus," Stephen said, glancing over at him as he finished up yet another drink. "I don't think any of us want to take care of you later." He would have completely denied hitting on Luna if anyone pointed it out. He was just being friendly! And drunk! He kept thinking about Seamus kissing him, too. That was strange. The whole day had been strange.

"Hell if I don't slow down, someone will have to take care of me," he mumbled, though he wasn't about to listen to himself at all.

"I don't know about that, about either. I don't think Luna wants to take care of me." Maybe it was time to really slow down. Stephen picked up a butterbeer instead of something alcoholic, deciding to take his time with it.

He wondered why Seamus was being so huffy. He was so curious that he asked, before he had a chance to think it over. "Why so huffy? Is the cheese not up to your standards or what?"

Before he went back to his cheese, smirking more now, his lips tingling from when they ran over his earlobe. Being pissed was the only thing keeping him not so awkward right now, and he would be thankful for it, if he knew what was going on.

That made Stephen shiver all up and down his spine. His skin were also tingling and he knew that it felt nice, but he wasn't sure why. He opened his mouth to reply, but.. nothing came out. Seamus was just playing with him, wasn't he? That was frustrating. He cleared his throat and blushed, fiercely. Knowing how bright it must be just made it worse.

He licked his lips and leaned up against him, snuggling and sighing, wrapping his arms around his waist. Apparently the blush and smile was an invitation for Seamus to grope and hug him. Hey, he was a touchy-feely bloke besides.

Hannah had long ago sat back to enjoy her pint and just observe. (Really it was often very preferable to joining in and saying something embarrassing, and she nearly always felt she'd embarrassed herself in social situations.) She'd smirked at Seamus's incredibly blatent flirting with Stephen but wondered at the other man's reaction. Not that there was anything wrong with Luna, of course, odd though she was, but it was strange. She raised an eyebrow as Seamus leaned in very, very close to Stephen to whisper to him and soon after snuggled into the other man. This could turn out to be quite entertaining.

Luna was catching up...to everything. It seems your first shot of firewhiskey has a tendancy to make everything go in slow motion and your brain to slow down even more than that. Of course, once it does, things kind of go into hyperspeed.

Being Luna's brain, once it did manage to come to grips with present time, it promptly catalogued what had happened:

2. Stephen said to stick with him, he won't hurt us. We like Stephen, he's a nice bloke...not like Seamus. And he called us love. We liked that.

3. Ginny gave us butterbeer. We like Ginny too.

4. Stephen thinks we don't want to take care of him! We'd take care of him, he's so nice to us! And why didn't we notice how cute he was before? Because we don't normally notice those things. We know that's Seamus' fault too, somehow. We'll figure that out later.

5. Seamus is flirting with Stephen! He's going to take care of our Stephen! No no no no no. That's not right! Why isn't that right? We have no idea, but it's not.

It was right about then that hyperspeed kicked in. If Luna's brain knew a foreboding song, like the kind they play in horro movies before things go terribly wrong, it would have started playing it now.

Luna reached over and pried Seamus' fingers loose from Stephen's waist, smacking his hands back once they were free. She shook a finger at him, trying to focus on teh correct Seamus to scold. He seemed to have multiplied while she was busy thinking.

"I stick to Stephen, not horrid man Seamus." She promptly wrapped her arms around Stephen, where Seamus just was, and squeezed.